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“Do I sound like a chick to you, Anderson?” Will asks from the other end of the line and I close my eyes as my head hits the closed door behind me.
“What do you want, Will?” The anger is coming off me in waves and I know he doesn’t deserve it, but right now he’s the only thing I can direct it at that isn’t my own reflection.
“Chill out, man. What happened with Harper? I thought you were supposed to be on a date with her tonight. She dumped you already?” he teases but the implication that I’ve lost my shot with her pierces my heart one silent breath at a time. This can’t be it, I won’t let it.
“Why are you calling, Harris?” I’m annoyed and from his throaty chuckle, I know he can tell. I need to get off the phone and figure out what I’m going to do from here.
“I wanted to know if you wanted to do some extra practice tomorrow morning before everyone gets to the field.”
I know I need it. I need to get my head back into my game because from what Justin said earlier, management has noticed and if I don’t get my act together, there will be consequences. Yet right now, that is the last thing I’m thinking about.
“Sure,” I mumble, not really paying attention.
“Are you okay, man?” The concern in his voice is evident, and so I decide to do the one thing I never do in this kind of situation. I talk.
“I fucked up,” I admit, pushing off the front door and making my way down the hallway, turning on the lights as I go. “I don’t know how I let this shit happen!” I grunt as I proceed to tell Will everything that happened, from our date getting interrupted, to the phone call and what Justin said at the bar, ending with the nightmare that is Angela kissing me and Harper seeing it all.
“Have you tried calling her?” Will asks as I flop down onto the couch, crossing my feet at my ankles as my head hits the pillows behind me.
“No… I haven’t thought of that.” The sarcasm comes naturally whenever he asks me a stupid fucking question, and right now is no exception.
“Okay, sorry, I deserved that. Stupid question. But knowing you, I know you haven’t had much experience in the chasing aspect of dating. Usually, girls fawn all over you and don’t care what you do.”
I take a deep breath, remembering that that’s the exact reason I liked Harper so much. She didn’t do any of that shit.
“I’ve called, I’ve left messages and I’ve even texted dozens of times, but she’s not answering.” Will is silent for a minute and I know he wants to say something that he knows will probably piss me off. “Spit it out,” I mutter as he chuckles softly.
“Just give her time. You know if the situation was reversed and you walked in on something like that, you would have reacted the exact same way, maybe even worse.”
He’s not wrong.
“She needs time to think about everything and you bombarding her with texts and calls probably isn’t making it any easier.”
“Since when did you become a romance expert?” I ask, knowing Will is as much of a ladies’ man as King, just less in your face about it.
“There’s more to me than a pretty face.” He laughs, causing a small smile to form, and for the thousandth time in my life, I wonder what I would do without him around.
“That’s what you think,” I tease, sitting up on the couch and leaning my head back, staring at the ceiling. “I gotta go, I’ll meet you at the stadium tomorrow.” We say goodbye and I sit here with silence surrounding me as the past twenty-four hours plays through my mind.
I need to fix this.
2
Harper
I can’t believe I was so stupid. Why am I always attracted to men who can’t keep their hands off other women? The sight from that night kept me up all night, flashes of Angela’s lips on Josh’s was enough to cause every hour of the night to creep by like molasses.
In the back of my mind, I know this is Angela’s doing, trying to get under my skin and I hate that it’s working. Josh has never given me a reason to question his fidelity, yet those doubts creep into the recesses of my mind and cause me to question everything I think I know about him.
Good morning, Sunshine. I miss you.
I pick up my phone off my desk and see Josh’s text, the same one he sends every morning since I walked away from him as Angela hung off him like she belonged there. I’ve ignored every one of them, deleting them every time they come through my phone. I know I should spare myself the torture and just block his number, but there’s something holding me back, a reason I can’t seem to delete him from my life.
“Buttercup,” Henry calls from my doorway, jolting me out of my own head. His sad smile deepens when he sees the dark circles under my eyes. “You okay?” he asks, as I nod, not giving him a verbal answer as I turn my head to the computer screen and pretend to be busy so I don’t burst into tears right here in my office. “Call Mel,” he mutters as my teary eyes meet his. “If you can’t talk to me about it, talk to her.”
I give him a slight nod, words still stuck in my throat as he winks, leaving me alone and shutting my door as he leaves.
I toy with my phone as I take Henry’s words to heart. I need to talk about this since talking to myself about this is causing me to go around and around in circles, and I’m getting nowhere. So, I dial her number and hope to God she’s up this early.
